Despite Indictments, Mchenry Is Still Gop Country

With the 7:43 still 15 minutes down the track, Diana Olson was sitting in the Cary train station reading her newspaper when a man with some pamphlets in his hand walked up.

``You must be running for office,`` said Olson nonchalantly in the manner of a veteran commuter as she glanced up.

``Hi, I`m John Leonardi and I`m running for Congress,`` said the man, handing her a pamphlet. Then someone else walked in out of the chilly dawn air and in an instant Leonardi was off to greet him.

``I`m the only Democrat in McHenry County, so I`ll probably vote for him,`` quipped Olson, a resident of Oakwood Hills who practices law in Chicago. ``But he`ll probably get zapped out here.``

And she`s probably right.

When Leonardi ran two years ago, Philip M. Crane, the incumbent Republican, beat him 3 1/2 to 1 in McHenry County.

Such has been the historical fate of McHenry County Democrats, except for a brief emergence in the mid-1970s in the aftermath of Watergate. In the last general election, more than 13,000 voters punched straight Republican tickets but only 499 did so for the Democrats.

Even a local pre-election scandal within the Republican ranks this year involving the county treasurer, a sitting County Board member and a former board candidate failed to create much of a clamor.

Criminal indictments handed down last summer alleging that nominating petitions were altered are being described by Republicans as little more than an ``embarrassment`` and by rival Democrats as a ``Republican Party problem.`` No one has accused state GOP chairman Albert M. Jourdan, the McHenry County auditor whose secretary notarized at least one altered nominating petition, of any complicity.

County Treasurer Gary W. Verdung pleaded guilty and resigned from office earlier this month, while County Board member Steven Moore and former candidate Kathleen R. Gardiner are both awaiting trial.

Because the trials are not expected to begin until after the Nov. 8 general election, most of the speculation has centered on what effect, if any, the scandal will have on Jourdan`s stewardship of the state GOP.

``There`s no question it hurt Jourdan,`` said one prominent county official. ``At the very least it was embarrassing to him.``

Jourdan headed the McHenry GOP party organization for 20 years and was elected chairman of the state party`s central committee to succeed Don Adams last January.

McHenry State`s Atty. Thomas F. Baker, running as a Republican for his first full term in office, said Jourdan is in the clear. ``His secretary notarized one of the petitions, but it appears that she notarized it before it was altered,`` Baker said.

Jourdan said he doesn`t think the scandal will cause any voter backlash for the national GOP ticket on Election Day, an assessment with which Richard J. Short, the county`s Democratic chairman, agrees.

``We believe everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and we feel this is a Republican Party problem,`` said Short, a local attorney.

``We have to be realistic. Only 7,500 people picked Democratic ballots in the last primary, but over 35,000 picked Republican ballots.

``We just hope our (Democratic) votes will be felt in the state and national races.``

No Democrats filed as candidates in the March primary for any of the five McHenry County offices on the ballot, and none filed for the 12 County Board seats.

Short said his party decided against attempting to fill any of the slots on its side of the ballot because, ``to put together a slate just to have someone on the ballot is not responsible.``

His pessimism is well grounded in the county`s political history. When former Sheriff Arthur Tyrell handily defeated his Republican opponent in 1970, he was the first Democrat to win county office in McHenry since 1864. Tyrell resigned in his third term to take a job in private industry.

The only two Democrats on the County Board in recent history were both elected in 1976 and were defeated four years later when they ran on an independent ticket because they didn`t think they could win again as Democrats. Both now serve as Republicans on the County Board.

``I felt more comfortable in the Republican Party,`` said Donald P. Doherty. ``I felt I belonged there philosophically.``

So after he and Charles Weingart lost as independents, he broached the possibility of a switch to a receptive Jourdan. ``You have to take the good Democrats and convert them,`` the party chairman said. ``Today they are two of my best Republicans.``